World Teams: China Beats Armenia, Ukraine Increases Lead

Ukraine increased its lead at the World Team Championship in Kemer, Antalya (Turkey) to a whopping 3 match points. In round 4 Germany was beaten 3-1, while their nearest rival Armenia went down 1.5-2.5 to China. Russia defeated Azerbaijan with the same score, while the Netherlands beat Turkey 3-1.

The big match in round 4 was China vs. Armenia, and on top board Levon Aronian showed the way for his team. The world number 2 beat Li Chao in an excellent game with Black, surprising his opponent in the opening and continuing with lots of powerful moves in the ending. The tactics at the end were a nice reward for the winner.

On board 4 Sargissian-Yu Yangyi was drawn, but the Chinese won this match thanks to victories on board 2 and 3. Especially Ding Liren's King's Indian against Sergei Movsesian was a pleasure to watch: on move 13 the 21-year-old GM from Wenzhou grabbed the initiative and moved his king's rook all the way to g3. When it was finally trapped, Movsesian didn't dare to take it because Black's black-squared bishop would become too strong. The Armenian GM got away with a rook ending a pawn down, but couldn't hold it.

Ding Liren, about to play a really nice KID

27-year-old Bu Xiangzhi, who became a GM at 13, slowly outplayed Akopian in an English to seal the Armenians' fate.

An excellent win for China

Ukraine continues to be the only team with a perfect score. In round 4 Germany was beaten convincingly: 3-1. On top board Vassily Ivanchuk defeated Igor Khenkin from the black side of an Exchange Slav - never easy!

Vassily Ivanchuk (next to Anton Korobov)

Korobov-Meier and Fridman-Moiseenko were drawn while Yuriy Kryvoruchko completely outplayed David Baramidze. In a Ruy Lopez, something clearly went wrong for Black, who was looking at a totally hopeless position after a mere 25 moves. There Baramidze understandably called it a day.

Russia defeated Azerbaijan but not without a tough fight. Rauf Mamedov was actually just better against Vladimir Kramnik in an ending, but the 14th World Champion could avoid serious trouble.

Nidjat Mamedov and Alexander Grischuk completely copied one of the Anand-Carlsen draws in the Berlin (the one that ended in a pawn ending) - the only difference was that they stopped a few moves earlier! Guseinov and Vitiugov also drew and so it was Sergey Karjakin who won both match points for Russia.

Sergey Karjakin scores an important win for Russia

USA and the Netherlands easily beat Egypt (3.5-0.5) and Turkey (3-1) respectively. Can you spot Alexander Onischuk's last move?

Anish Giri won a nice game as Black against former World Junior Champion Alexander Ipatov.

Although Loek van Wely makes more money from poker than from chess these days, he can still play some pretty good moves:

when i look at the engine it was pointed out as the big blunder by chucky as he miss nxe7+ and subsequent blunder by igor for not playing nxe7 it is very in such high level competitions that players miss such easy moves maybe chucky must have calculated very further which could have defect and igor was afraid that there would be something in chucks hat

The scores of a couple of games (in this article) appear to be inaccurate. Technically, an incorrect scoresheet can put the game result in question. An issue that is not currently being enforced by FIDE.

- In the game Khenkin vs Ivanchuk on move 16. White could have played 16. NxBe7ch, Kf8 17. NxRc8 winning a rook and a knight.- In the game Mamedov vs Kramnik on move 26. Black could have played 26...Rxc2 instead of 26...Rd8, winning a pawn while taking the second rank.

The answer to the question about why not 16.Nxe7 in the Khenkin-Ivanchuk game has nothing to do with both players. The game score is an error in transmission -- there are many such errors from Turkey these days, as those of you who have followed the competition live have experienced again and again.

The actual moves played were quite possibly different for these 3 moves: 15.Nd3 (instead of 15.Nxc6, which was incorrectly reported) Nb4 16.Nxb4 Nxf4 17.exf4 Bxb4, and from move 18 onwards on you can then safely follow the game moves as listed: the position before move 18 is identical both ways, but the moves I listed above are already sane-looking.

In short, players like Ivanchuk don't blunder like this; always seek other explanations!

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